quality Archives - Page 2 of 2

Orange Garnet – January’s Radiant Jewel

For those lucky individuals with January birthdays, there are a lot of options from which to choose when it comes to garnet stones. An oft-overlooked color of garnet is the radiant orange garnet, also known by its mineral classifications hessonite, spessartine, and mandarin. Hessonite, also known as Cinnamon Stone, is a type of grossular, which is a species of garnet. Hessonite has a very distinct red hue which gravitates toward orange and yellow, though hessonite is often heavily included and is rarely used in jewelry. Spessartine, on the other hand, is another species of garnet with characteristic orange and light-red color tones. Finally, mandarin garnets are a specific type of spessartine with a fiery and radiant orange color. We know that’s a lot of different terms to throw around, so let’s take a look at the history of these beautiful stones, how you might use the orange garnets to create unique engagement rings or wedding bands with a stunning and innovative look, and what to look for in a high-quality orange garnet.

Hessonite-Garnet-300x168 Gemstones — Hessonite Garnet

Spessartite-examples-300x169 Gemstones — Spessartite/Mandarin Garnet

The History of Orange Garnets

The garnet stone has a rich and detailed historical legacy. Emperors, kings, philosophers, generals, and famous individuals of all kinds have worn jewelry adorned with beautiful garnet stones for centuries. The garnet has been exceedingly popular in Europe, especially throughout the 1700’s and 1800’s, wherein they were prized for their rich hues and tones. In fact, Spanish astrologers once used the garnet to signify the sun – indeed, the orange garnet is almost perfect for representing the radiant beauty of the sun. We have only seen the garnet in present in a variety of mythological and literary works, thus lending credence to the fact that the garnet is one of the most desirable gemstones in the entire industry and has been for some time.

What to Look for in an Orange Garnet

As with all gemstones, your primary considerations with orange garnets are going to revolve around clarity and color, as well as durability. Most spessartines, including mandarin garnets, have excellent Mohs hardness and durability while also sporting strong and deep colors and excellent clarity. At Knox Jewelers, we will help you to select the perfect orange garnet for your piece and ensure that it passes muster in all aspects to ensure that your engagement ring or wedding band is absolutely perfect and stunning.

What Makes Garnet The Perfect January Birthstone

Orange may not be the most popular color when it comes to gemstones, but don’t be too quick to write off orange garnets. Spessartine and mandarin garnets can be combined with a variety of different metals to create a truly beautiful piece which is both exciting and elegant. For centuries, orange gemstones have been used to create jewelry with evocative and rich feelings, images, and patterns, all of which have contributed to the uniqueness and fashion of these orange garnets. For individuals seeking to integrate a powerful red gemstone into their jewelry, and especially for those individuals with January birthdays, an orange garnet is the perfect choice.

Garnet Engagement Rings and Wedding Bands

At Knox Jewelers, we have crafted a rich and varied collection of unique engagement rings and wedding bands for our customers in the past. All of the designs we have created for our customers can utilize any gemstone you can imagine, including orange garnets. A stunning combination is to utilize a white gold or platinum band in conjunction with an orange garnet setting – the contrast of these two elements creates a stunning and exciting synthesis of color, elegance, and beauty, all of which contribute to making your custom engagement ring or wedding band a one of a kind piece of jewelry.

Have Any Questions? We’re Here to Help!

If you are thinking about utilizing an orange garnet gemstone in a custom jewelry piece, then please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions you may have. Here at Knox Jewelers, we have long worked with orange garnets and have crafted some truly exquisite pieces for our customers, and we would be happy to help you design a unique ring which uniquely describes you or your loved one. We are not only available to answer your questions, but we would also be glad to walk you through the entire process of designing a unique piece of jewelry just for you, from start to finish. We look forward to meeting you and working together with you soon!

Men’s Wedding Bands – Classic to Contemporary: Designs That Will Fit Any Man’s Style

At Knox Jewelers, we don’t just create stunning jewelry for women – we also specialize in designing men’s wedding bands of all kinds. The origins of men’s wedding rings go all the way back to the matrimonial culture of ancient Egypt, wherein rings of braided hemp or reed were used to symbolize the eternal unity and love of the wedded couple. As the ages progressed, new kinds of styles came into and out of fashion, including gimmel rings, poesy rings, and more. However, the ritual of double-ring ceremonies did not develop in the United States until around the late 1940’s. Since that time, a variety of styles have taken hold in popular opinion, and customers today who are looking to have a custom, handcrafted wedding band produced to symbolize everlasting love and marriage have the ability to choose from a vast number of unique styles and variations on classic designs. Let’s take a look now at some of the different styles of men’s wedding bands we have handcrafted here at Knox Jewelers for our gentleman customers in the past, who – to say the least – have been extraordinarily happy with the final design and product.

Classic Men’s Wedding Rings

The archetypal wedding band is the classic style, usually consisting of a relatively simple design, smooth curves, clean lines, and yellow gold, though subtle variations on these attributes do exist. At Knox Jewelers, we can take a classic design and give it a refreshing, innovative set of modifications to make it uniquely yours. Whether you are looking to incorporate a different kind of metal for the band, or if you are seeking a custom set of modifications on an existing design, we would be more than happy to work with you on crafting a ring that will symbolize your eternal love.

Hand Engraved Men’s Wedding Rings

Those individuals looking for a more vintage style of ring ought to consider a hand engraved wedding band. Our expert metalsmiths and artists at Knox Jewelers can take this style in a variety of different directions, and many different patterns can be crafted. For example, let’s take a close look at our North Shore Hand Engraved Wheat wedding band. This exquisite ring uses 14k white gold in concert with lovely wheat pattern around the center of the band. Naturally, the engraved pattern can be customized with your own unique design. Also of interest to you may be our North Shore Hand Engraved Scroll ring.

Mokume Gane Men’s Wedding Rings

Some of the most unique wedding bands we have created for our customers in the past have been Mokume Gane wedding rings. We have written about it before, but here is the short story on the art of Mokume Gane. 17th century Japan gave birth to a unique set of techniques for combining multiple metals into a flowing design which emulates the patterns of nature. At Knox Jewelers, we craft each and every one of our Mokume Gane rings from scratch, and they are some of our most beautiful works.

Contemporary Men’s Wedding Rings

Our contemporary wedding bands incorporate a variety of different flourishes, including diamonds, gemstones, many types of finishes, geometrically-inspired shapes, and more. We also make extensive use of decorative lines and negative space to craft the most unique wedding bands around.

Knox Jewelers: Creators of Unique Wedding Bands Since 1984

Create custom wedding bands for our valued customers is our vocation, and we are proud to have crafted so many unique and beautiful designs for our customers throughout the years. Have a look at our entire portfolio of men’s wedding bands to see more examples of our work. As you might imagine, we are very proud to have had the opportunities to design these beautiful wedding bands for our past customers, and we are more than happy to answer any questions you may have about designing custom men’s wedding bands. We look forward to working together with you to design the perfect wedding band!

Engagement Ring Photos and the Importance of Real Photography

As we approach 6000 “real” photos of engagement rings and wedding bands, we’re reminded of all the work we’ve done in getting our designs on this very website. It’s important to understand that our quality and workmanship have to be top-notch when photographing at the macro level. Our jewelers and craftsmen must execute with the same passion as our designers. It takes years of experience across these many dedicated individuals to deliver a quality piece, something that a virtual image will never convey.

Sometimes we wish our photos could be produced by the touch of a button. It would be much easier to generate 6000 perfect computer renderings and not worry about capturing the countless hours of detail and passion put into our pieces. One slight problem, our customers don’t wear virtual rings.

2082_flower_image Unique Engagement Rings — Photograph taken of Caledonia Design - Unique Engagement Rings

The key to our business is heirloom quality unique engagement rings. The designing is only half of the battle. The craftsmanship yields the end product and is where we really shine as you can see in every one of our engagement ring photos. Our designs are handmade and given meticulously attention to in every detail. How would anyone be able to see our quality if our collection was all computer generated? The diamonds still have to be precisely set, the metal still has to be polished smooth, and the engraving still has to be cut by hand.

Our customers come to us because they want to cherish the beauty and art put into everyone of our designs. They don’t want the same design that has been made ten thousand times by an overworked, underpaid worker overseas. They want unique, they want one-of-a-kind, and they want heirloom quality.

Virtual jewelry only shows 50 percent of any given design. It’s a mere concept of how a design should look. The design still has to executed into a beautiful piece of art and that feat takes years of experience. Quality and craftsmanship come with no easy button.

Custom making a wide Eternity Band.

The following is a look behind the scenes of how a custom ring is made.

I will start by showing a picture of the finished ring and then explain how the ring is made and show some of the steps in the process.

2082_1_image Custom In Progress — Knox Jewelers Caledonia Design

Now I will show and explain in a very condensed manner the process of making a ring like this.

Here is the ‘screenshot’ from our 3-D design software showing the design from several different angles. A design like this can take many hours of design and engineering time.

cad Custom In Progress — Screen shot from Knox Jewelers 3D design software

After using a CAM technology to make a physical prototype and mold used to make this ring, the design are cast in 18 karat white gold. Here is a picture of the raw castings:

cast Custom In Progress — Raw Ring Casting

The design has three sections, the two outside rails and the inside pattern.

The overall finished width will be 15mm. Finger size 5.25

After cleaning up the raw castings ( removing sprues, smoothing, etc) the three sections are ready to finish.

Here are a couple pics after we finished setting the diamonds in the two outside rails.

5cutprongs Custom In Progress — Assembled ring with diamonds set in the rails

7-burnish-prongs Custom In Progress — Assembled ring with diamonds set in the rails

Here are a couple quick pics with the rest of the diamonds set.

10-ready-for-bigs Custom In Progress — Assembled ring with diamonds set in the rails and center section

17milgrain2 Custom In Progress — Assembled ring with diamonds set in the rails and center section

There is No Short Cut to Quality

The work necessary to obtain an immaculate look on a design with this level of detail is a very time consuming task and as we are fond of saying at Knox Jewelers, “there is no shortcut to quality”.

A master level artisan must carefully bright cut and engrave all of the beautiful detail into the areas around the diamonds and finally apply the milgrain which gives the design a beautiful and finished look.

The diamond setting, engraving and milgraining labor (not counting design work, prototyping, casting) for a ring with this level of detail will have approx 32 man hours of labor when finished.

We think of projects like this as a miniature work of art with our name on it.

Click Here to See the product page of the Finished Ring and Hi-Def Video

Please Visit our website KnoxJewelers.biz